As a dependence of people on a mobile product has increased, touch screen technologies, including an original resistive touch screen, as well as newest outboard full-fit touch screen, on-cell (a touch sensor is assembled on a liquid crystal panel), HIC, full in cell (a touch sensor is embedded inside a display screen), and the like, have advanced rapidly. In these touch screen technologies, a self-capacitance type capacitive touch screen and a mutual-capacitance type capacitive touch screen are most widely used. In a traditional touch screen technology, the required sensor patterns in X, Y directions are obtained by evaporating and coating ITO on glass and then performing etching, wherein the sensor pattern in Y direction is continuously arranged, and the sensor pattern in X direction are made in a bridging manner.
With regard to a bridging process for receivers (Rx) and transmitters (Tx) of a touch screen, a bridging electrode needs to connect two X-direction electrodes located at two sides of a Y-direction electrode, and can not enable the Y-direction electrode and the X-direction electrode to communicate. As such, it is necessary to first prepare an insulating layer at an intersection position of Y and X directions, and then perforate via holes through the insulating layer above two electrode patterns in X direction, and finally enable the bridging electrode to connect the two electrode patterns in X direction through via holes, thereby achieving bridging. Therefore, the bridging process for the electrode patterns in X and Y directions is essentially a patterning process for an electrode material. The patterning process for most traditional electrode material includes a photo etching process and an etching process.
In a traditional metal bridging process, the process complexity is increased due to processes such as evaporation coating, photoresist-applying, developing and etching of a metal target material. Moreover, in an etching process, the metal electrode is likely to be etched because the alignment is not precise enough, or the metal electrode may be broken, thereby causing a reduction in yield. Therefore, a new process capable of reducing the process difficulty and improving the yield of the touch screen is particularly important.
With regard to a patterning process for the electrode material, ink-jet printing may also be employed. Although the ink-jet printing is a good way for patterning, in view of industrialized mass production, problems such as a size of the ink head, a dribbling amount and the operation continuity for ink-jet printing have always been a bottleneck required to be solved. Particularly, once a liquid drop deviates or displaces, Rx and Tx may be likely to be connected together due to a spreading problem and a film-forming uncertainty after the liquid drop dribbles. In the prior art, a silk-screen printing machine is also used to realize patterning for the electrode material, but it is found in actual processing that, the silk-screen printing machine is high in input cost, and high in pattern typesetting cost. In addition, the precision of a silk screen also affects the resolution.